Scanning: Starting the Year with a Plan
We start our year with scanning and gathering the voices of our learners (staff and students). These actions help us make decisions that will improve teaching and learning. Collecting this data at the beginning of the year gives us a starting point and we can check in at the end of the year with more scanning and gathering of voices, to see if our actions made a difference.
What did we gather:
- We looked at our Grade 4 and 7 Numeracy data.
- We surveyed the staff on the knowledge and comfort level in accessing the Foundations of Numeracy resources available on Richnet, implementing teaching practices and assessing students in the area of mathematics.
- We asked staff to scan their own students and identify their strengths and stretches in math and numeracy. We also asked them to identify how confident their students are in applying their math knowledge to numeracy tasks.
What did we learn:
- 29% of students are Emerging in Numeracy according to our FSA data
- While staff feel they are getting better and more confident every day in teaching math and accessing resources, they still want more time to collaborate with staff and engage in professional learning in the area of math.
- Overall, our students have strong math skills, but they struggle to apply this knowledge to numeracy tasks and this is an area of opportunity for our students.
Our Actions:
- Gather student voices on their view of math and numeracy and their ability to solve problems.
- Continue to provide opportunities for collaboration so staff can work together to plan using B.C. Curriculum big ideas and how to provide multiple entry points for all students. We have a small group of staff working on our district Elementary Facilitating Collaboration project with Janice Novakowski in the area of math.
- As a staff, engage in professional learning in the area of Math on some of our Pro D days.
- Ensure our staff has the tools they need so they can feel confident and have success in teaching math. Tools can include having the right manipulatives, collaboration time and working with our district teacher consultant
- Share strategies at Staff Meetings that can support, collaboration with our students in their ability to apply their math knowledge to Numeracy tasks.
Our Focus: (this is a repeat of what is on the Our Focus page but want it here in case people don’t see that)
For the 2024-2025 school year, we will continue to focus on improving student learning with a focus on Math and Numeracy. Through our scanning, 66% of our staff self-identified that they would like to grow their ability and understanding of teaching to diversity in the math classroom. Through our staff scanning, our staff has identified that math computation is a strength for our learners, but applying this knowledge to numeracy tasks is a stretch. We are going to focus our efforts on building our students growth mindset in math and helping them make the connection between their math knowledge and real life situations (numeracy tasks).